Hoh, S. Fork

We ran the South fork Hoh on Nov 25, 2004 with a group of 8. We hiked in about a mile on the trail. It's a bit tricky knowing when to head off the trail and into the woods. Stay on the trail until it begins rising fairly steeply. We didn't see a trail down to the water there, but the bush wacking was not difficult. If you head off the trail too soon, you could end up with a long hike to the river, which would be at the far end of a meander. If you head off too late, you'll not be able to get down a cliff. The best whitewater was in the first 1-2 miles, so it was definitely worth hiking in. The drops were easier than Korb made them out to be, but that may be due to landslides into the river. We had 4 easy portages due to logs, but all we visible in time to read and run. It was pretty much flat after the camp ground, so I would recommend taking out at the campground. We continued down for about 2 miles after that. We talked to friendly neighbors that to ask them about the take-out that Korb suggested, Hoh Rainforest Lots. They said that folks living there were not friendly. Instead, we followed their suggestion to drive as far as the rd would go, parking at a friendly owner's place who gave us permission. The tricky aspect of this take-out is that you cannot easily get to the river from the take-out, because you have to cross a stream channel and island to mark the main Hoh. We found the easiest place to do this was at the downstream end of the island, which you get to from the very end of the rd. From there, we waded across in our drysuits, crossed the island, and marked the main Hoh. Allow yourself an extra 30-60 mins to mark your take-out. When parking the take-out car, watch out for creeks crossing this road that are unpassable. I decided that I didn't want to risk driving my car through these creeks, and in the end, it turned out to be a wise decision because the creek came up a ways while we were on the Hoh. This trip was fun as as a novelty, but didn't have much in the way of class III. The only tricky aspect was eddying out in time to avoid the log jams.